WHILE TNT’s newest no-warts-and-all biopic of insane daredevil Evel Knievel may never equal the original, 1971 biopic, it still has its moments.

Who is most Evel: “CSI” star Gorgeous George Eads or George “Man Tan” Hamilton in the 1971 original? Both.

Take this blurb of the first flick from IMDB.com: “It’s pretty ridiculous and not that well made, but it’s a lot of fun anyway . . . It’s like the filmmakers don’t really have any idea why Evel became a thrill seeker, so instead of trying to explain it, they simply show a bunch of stunts.”

OK, my work is done here, folks, and I can go shopping. That blurb works for this movie as well.

While the original was done in a series of flashbacks, this one takes a linear course that just feels like a series of flashbacks – beginning with a mythic story of little Evel going to jail for stealing hubcaps.

The owner of the car he’s stolen the hubcabs from runs little Knievel over, but the cops don’t seem to care about the hit-and-run and arrest the kid instead.

Fast forward to the late ’50s, and Evel is doing two-bit motorcycle tricks around Butte, Mont., for chump change.

Along comes Linda (Jaime Pressly, who is so ridiculous here), a gorgeous high-schooler. High-schooler? She looks like the 30-year-old, tarted-up teacher!

Her dad (Beau Bridges) sends the police looking for them when he supposedly kidnaps her from a skating rink.

When they get caught, the dad roughs them up and then, for reasons I hope never to understand, they suddenly are married with two boys and Evel is a hot-shot daredevil.

The starmaking stunt is his 1968 attempt to jump the fountains at Caesar’s Palace, which was filmed entirely by the soon-to-be-star, Linda Evans. Now, no one would care that she filmed the whole thing except that Evel crashed and broke all his moving parts.

Amid much trauma about how he’d never walk again, Evel not only seems to miraculously recover with no side effects but (for reasons also unexplained) he suddenly is driving a gazillion dollar sports car and buying a giant mansion.

Neither Linda (his wife, not the “Dynasty” star) nor Evel ever seem to age, which is helpful to a guy whose second job seems to be cheating on his wife, who never seems too upset about it.

Sure, Linda gets ticked off from time to time, and it appears as though they’ve split up. But in the next scene, there she is again taking care of hearth and home in her bikini.

The epilogue says they were married for 38 years, but doesn’t mention if she divorced him or if she died. (Evel says on a website that “I divorced her.”)

Eads is very, very good in the role – equal parts bad boy, entertainer, braggart, cheat and businessman. It’s hard to make a guy like that not only appealing, but lovable. And he does.